COLUMBUS – “It’s possible some day I could be president. I mean, it’s hard to believe — for me, too. But it could happen.”

John Kasich, Ohio’s Republican governor, is running for president. He’ll make it official Tuesday. And as he explained last week to a group of New Hampshire workers, he has a shot of giving Ohio its first president in nearly a century.

In the Buckeye State, we’re used to our presidential importance. We’re the quintessential swing state. No Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning Ohio.

But having our sitting governor run for president will mean a new level of attention and scrutiny — and create new opportunities for historic superlatives about our state.

‘Vote for Kasich’ meets ‘Come to Ohio’

For a governor to make a credible bid for the White House, he or she must have something to sell.

That means policies, of course, but it also means the state’s economy.

Which means, like it or not, we’re running for president with Kasich.

Kasich’s campaign will tout Ohio’s income tax cuts, the state’s surplus tax revenue, its $2 billion savings account and its progress recovering from the Great Recession of 2008. Through all of that, voters will listen for whether Ohio is a good place to live and work, and whether Kasich had anything to do with it.

“Governors always, always, always take credit — even if their policies have nothing to do with prosperity,” said John Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College and former research director for the Republican National Committee.

Ohio’s unemployment rate of 5.2 percent has remained below the national rate — at times, barely. The national unemployment rate hovered at 5.3 percent in June. The state has recovered most of the jobs it lost in the recession. Still, since the start of the economic downturn, more than a quarter of a million Ohioans have dropped out of the labor force.

But Ohio has escaped the budget problems that have plagued other states, thanks in part to Kasich’s controversial insistence that lawmakers raise other taxes to make up for income tax cuts. This year, at least 19 states were scrambling to make up for shortfalls in tax revenue. Not so in Ohio.

And despite the controversy that followed Kasich’s move to privatize the state’s economic development arm and shield it from public records requests, economists have said the organization deserves credit for recruiting major companies such as General Electric at The Banks and Amazon in Central Ohio.

“That all puts Ohio in the national spotlight as a positive place to do business,” said Bob Taft, the Cincinnati Republican who served as Ohio’s governor from 1999 to 2006.

Someone noticing ‘I’m out of the office ...’

Kasich’s 2016-related travel has increasingly taken him to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Iowa more than to Hamilton, Springfield and Boardman.

One effect: We’ve already started seeing a lot more of Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who would become governor if Kasich were to, say, get another job.

“Maybe Gov. (John) Kasich could be elected president. Then I could be the next governor. I think that’s a really good idea,” Taylor last month told delegates of Buckeye Girls State, according to The Review newspaper in Alliance.

Understandably, Kasich has always delegated many of his state duties to cabinet members. On the campaign trail or in interviews with reporters, he keeps his flip phone with an aide or on the table in front of him, stepping away to make a call or stopping to read a text.

The day the Republican-controlled Legislature controversially voted to place a CEO in charge of Youngstown City Schools, Kasich was making his first visit to Iowa. He was giving a speech when the Legislature authorized the change, but an adviser interrupted him when the bill passed so he could celebrate.

Will Ohioans notice Kasich’s absence?

Democrats will, at least. In May, Kasich was campaigning in Georgia in the days after the acquittal of Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo, who had jumped on top of a Chevrolet Malibu and fired 15 shots at the passengers inside, a car already riddled with bullets fired by police. Clevelanders protested for several days after the acquittal.

David Pepper, who chairs the Ohio Democratic Party, pounced.

“On the very day Cleveland is working hard to address serious issues, Ohio’s sitting governor is 700 miles away, wining and dining with Republican big-wigs and donors,” Pepper said in a statement. “It’s becoming clear that Kasich’s number-one priority is serving his presidential ambitions, not working for the people of Ohio.”

A place in history? Yes, but which place

Let’s say Kasich were to win: Eight Ohioans have served in the country’s highest office, but he’d be the first since Warren G. Harding in the 1920s. (Harding actually defeated another Ohioan, James Cox.)

“We are such a closely divided state,” Taft said. “There’s no job security that would allow someone to develop the national reputation to start running for president.”

Pitney has another theory: “No disrespect, but Ohio governors have not been oozing charisma.”

Former Gov. Taft himself is part of a political dynasty anchored by his great-grandfather, Cincinnati’s William Howard Taft. His grandfather, U.S. Sen. Robert A. Taft, sought the GOP nomination for president in 1940 but failed. That means the last Ohioan on a major party ticket was John Bricker in 1944 — the running mate of failed presidential candidate Thomas Dewey.

Core to Kasich’s campaign pitch is the notion that putting an Ohioan on the ballot will help Republicans win back the White House. He currently polls ahead of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the Buckeye State, which early-primary voters believe they must deliver in November.

The 2016 election will likely hinge on Ohio, regardless of whether Kasich appears on the ballot, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball political forecasting newsletter, who is writing a book about Ohio as a swing state. And Kasich’s strength in the state might be challenged once national politics are at stake.

“The state is still very politically divided,” Kondik said. “I think if Kasich becomes a national figure of the Republican Party, maybe that makes him a more polarizing figure back home.”

Ohio’s presidents

William Henry Harrison, Whig, 1841

Ulysses S. Grant, Republican, 1869-1877

Rutherford B. Hayes, Republican, 1877-1881

James A. Garfield, Republican, 1881

Benjamin Harrison, Republican, 1889-1893

William McKinley, Republican, 1897-1901

William Howard Taft, Republican, 1909-1913

Warren G. Harding, Republican, 1921-1923

Follow us as we follow Kasich

Gannett Ohio’s Chrissie Thompson is the only reporter in the country focused exclusively on covering John Kasich’s presidential bid — and its success or failure. Follow her on Twitter via @CThompsonENQ.

Come to our website Tuesday for live coverage of Kasich’s announcement